Since the early fifteenth century, Spain had enjoyed a long tradition of sending artists and architects to Italy, though not in any structured way, and certainly not under any system of royal pensions (Moleon Gavilanes 2003). The first discernible presence of Spanish artists on the Italian peninsula began in 1442 after Alfonso I of Aragon conquered Naples. Alfonso brought to Naples such noted architects and artists as Luciano Laurana, Donatello, and Giuliano da Sangallo to work on various projects throughout the city. The Mallorcan architect and sculptor Guillem Sagrera (c. 1380-1454) was summoned to Naples in 1447 by Alfonso, to carry out the reconstruction of the Castel Nuovo, the royal residence which sealed his reputation even if it was his last major work. The great hall with its octagonal star vault was completed by his son Jaime and cousin Juan, along with several assistants. It remains among the most impressive spaces in the city today. The Castel
Nuovo’s triumphal arch too employed a Catalan sculptor, Pere Joan in 1453-56, in achieving its classicizing character (Frommel 2007: 47).
As a Spanish possession and seat of Spanish viceroys 1505-1707, Naples offered great opportunities for Spanish architects and engineers. A good example is Diego de Siloe (c. 1495-1563) who visited the city in 1516 prior to moving on to Florence and Rome. His Italian journey would inspire him enormously when he returned to Spain in 1519 to work on the cathedral of Granada (Rosenthal 1961). His new plan for the church’s apse and nave introduced such classicizing elements as piers composed of classical pilasters and engaged columns, raised on pedestals, and impost blocks in the form of a three-part entablature, transforming the structure from a late Gothic cathedral to an early example of Spanish Roman, or al romano architecture.
The first two decades of the sixteenth century witnessed a significant presence of Spanish architects and artists in Italy. The sculptor and painter Alonso Berruguete (1488-1561) visited Florence and Rome between 1505 and 1518, studying the ruins of antiquity as well as the recent works of Bramante, Raphael, and Michelangelo, the latter whom he met (Camon Aznar 1980: 22-7). Though upon his return to Spain he practiced little architecture. His retable altarpiece (retablo) for the Benedictine monastery of San Benito, Valladolid (1526), shows signs of classicizing elements, even if the overall decorative scheme recalls the plateresque (silversmith-like) surface treatment that was typical of the era. Yet the scalloped niches and pediments of the altarpiece unmistakably recall Bramante’s work in Rome. The Spanish painter and architect from Toledo, Pedro Machuca (c. 1490-1550), was in Rome and Florence 1512-20, where he was connected with Raphael’s workshop (Rosenthal 1985: 13-17). Upon returning to Spain he was given the extraordinary commission to design Charles V’s royal palace at the Alhambra in Granada, a work that occupied him for the rest of his life and remains one of the more contentious buildings in Spain, as its over-classicizing vocabulary, however mannerist, is decidedly out of context with the great Nasrid citadel. The Spanish writer Diego de Sagredo (c. 1490-1528) was in Rome and Florence as well, probably between 1518 and 1522, just prior to the publication of his groundbreaking Medidas del romano (Sagredo 1986 [1526]), the first architectural book published in Spain, and more importantly the first published work on the orders of architecture and Renaissance theory in general (Marias and Bustamente Garcia 1986). All of these figures would play an instrumental role in transmitting Italian renaissance theory and practice to the Iberian Peninsula in the early sixteenth century.
The middle decades of the sixteenth century also witnessed a strong presence of Spanish architects and artists in Italy. Francisco de Holanda (1517-84), educated in the Portuguese humanist court at Evora, arrived in Rome in the late summer of 1538, quickly making the acquaintance of Michelangelo (Bury 1981; Holanda 2006). While there he produced his album of antiquities, As antigualhas, and his dialogues on painting, the Didlogo da pintura, which constitutes Book II of his Da pintura antigua (1548). He was in contact with several Italian architects and artists during his stay in Italy, including Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and Sebastiano Serlio, prompting him to start his exceptional collection of drawings and etchings after the antique. He returned to Lisbon in 1540 as a celebrated artist, and made several journeys to Spain where he shared his theoretical knowledge of Italian art and architecture with the court of Philip II.
Gaspar Becerra, or Bezzerra (c. 1520-68), and Pablo de Cespedes (c. 1548-1608), two well-known Spanish painters, had been in Rome in the 1550s and engaged with Roman artists during their visit (Palomino de Castro y Velasco 1987: 17-22, 62-6). Becerra was a friend of the Spanish goldsmith and sculptor Juan de Arfe y Villafane, and it is likely the latter’s influence that contributed greatly to his visiting Rome (Cean Bermudez 1965: I, 112). While in Rome, Becerra worked at the church of San Giacomo degli Spagnoli on the Piazza Navona, producing the tabernacle for the high altar (1551), though the work no longer exists, and a fresco of The Apparition of Christ, now at the Castel Sant’Angelo (Serrano Marques 1999: 210-11). Arfe is also the one who credited Becerra with bringing Michelangelo’s style to Spain, even if there is no direct evidence that he collaborated with the Tuscan master. Becerra undoubtedly studied Michelangelo’s works, as evidenced in his design for the main altar for the Church of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid, a work that was destroyed by fire in 1862 and is known only from a surviving drawing by the artist (Martin Gonzalez 1969: 335-7).2 While in Rome, Pablo de Cespedes worked alongside Cesare Arbasia on the frescos for the Annunciation chapel (also known as the Bonfili chapel) at the church of the Trinita dei Monti (Diaz Cayeros 2000). Anticus Bonfili was a mysterious Spaniard in Rome on affairs with the Curia when he commissioned Cespedes to complete the chapel (Fallay d’Este 1990: 57). Seen in its entirety, the chapel reads like a thesis on the correspondence between the Old and New Testaments more than anything. Finally, a relatively unknown Spanish architect, Francisco del Castillo el Mozo (c. 1528-86) was in Rome 1546-53 working at Saint Peter’s under Michelangelo and another Spaniard, Juan Bautista de Toledo, and at the Villa Giulia under Ammanati, and Vignola, before practicing his trade in Andalucia (Moleon Gavilanes 2003: 69).
In the later sixteenth century, Spanish architects in Rome displayed a more theoretical approach to Italian classicism, engaging more directly with the ancient Roman writer Vitruvius’ treatise on architecture De architectura in libri decem (in translation Vitruvius 1999). The humanist architect, mathematician, and theologian from Granada, Lazaro de Velasco (c. 1525-85) traveled to Italy prior to producing his epic translation of Vitruvius into Spanish in 1564, the first Spanish edition of the ancient author, though regrettably it was never published and remained in manuscript form (Velasco 1999). Juan Bautista de Toledo (c. 1515-67) and Juan de Herrera (c. 1530-97) both traveled to Italy and are responsible for what is unquestionably the most important early modern monument on the Iberian peninsula, the royal monastery of the Escorial (Kubler 1982).3 Juan Bautista de Toledo worked in Rome under Antonio da Sangallo the Younger at Castel Sant’Angelo 1544-48, and then with Michelangelo at Saint Peter’s 1546-48. The following year he was in Naples working at the Castel Nuovo before Philip II summoned him to Spain (Vicuna 1964). Juan de Herrera traveled through Italy, Germany and Flanders 1548-51 in a diplomatic capacity (Wilkinson-Zerner 1993: 2). He returned to Italy in 1553 as a soldier and continued to Brussels the following year. He became Juan Bautista de Toledo’s assistant at the Escorial before becoming head architect after the latter’s death. In the 1590s, the Jesuit Juan Bautista de Villalpando (1552-1608) produced his treatise and commentary on the Temple of Solomon, In Ezechielem Explanationes et Apparatus Urbis ac Templi Hierosolymitani, in collaboration with another Jesuit, Jeronimo Prado. Inspired by his previous experience working at the Escorial under Herrera, the treatise was later published in Rome in four volumes 1596-1604 (Prado and Villalpando 1596-1604; Ramirez 1991). Based on the writings of the prophet Ezekiel, Villalpando sought to re-establish the origins of ancient architecture in accordance with Vitruvius and scripture, making Solomonic imagery a mainstream topic of Spanish architectural theory.
In the wake of Prado and Villalpando, two seventeenth-century Spanish architects and writers on architecture, Fray Juan Rizi (1600-81) and Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz (1606-82), returned to the question of Solomonic imagery and, like their predecessors, both of them did so in Italy. Rizi, a Benedictine monk, painter, writer, and architect, produced his Tratado de la pintura sabia (MS. c. 1659-62) in Spain, and the Brebe tratado de arqui-tectura a cerca del Orden Salomonico Entero (1663) in Rome, dedicating it to Alexander VII and Queen Christina of Sweden (Tormo y Monzo et al. 1930; Salort Pons 1999). The unpublished pintura sabia is a graphic treatise on geometry, the orders of architecture (largely taken from Vignola), anatomy, and perspective, with brief explanations. The Brebe tratado de arquitectura is a study on Bernini’s Baldacchino at Saint Peter’s, with a new chancel, as well as a proposed Solomonic column dedicated to the Immaculate Conception for the Piazza in front of the Pantheon (which at that time still contained Bernini’s twin bell towers). The extremely eccentric Spanish Cistercian and polymath, Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz (Bishop of Vigevano), produced his exceptional Architectura civil recta y obliqua (Caramuel de Lobkowitz 1678), a defense of what he called nova ars, namely how to build using oblique angles and optical correctives (Ramirez 1991: 109-14; Fernandez-Santos Ortiz-Iribas 2005). Called to Rome in 1655 by the Chigi Pope, Alexander VII, he would remain in Italy for the rest of his life writing on various matters, theological, architectural, and artistic. The sixteenth century, however, witnessed few practicing Spanish architects in Italy. The Sevillian painter, architect, and stage designer, Francisco de Herrera el Mozo (1622-85), was according to Palomino (1987: 270) in Rome at some point in the late 1640s, though there is no evidence to support this. He was appointed Royal architect on July 31, 1677, working in Saragossa and Madrid (Moleon Gavilanes 2003: 72). The painter Jose Jimemez Donoso (c. 1632-90) was in Rome from approximately 1650 to 1657, studying painting and architecture. Upon his return to Madrid, he worked on the fagade of the Casa de la Panaderia in the Plaza Mayor. While few Spanish architects traveled to Italy in the sixteenth century, Italian influence arrived in Spain directly via architectural treatises and illustrations more than anything else.
Painting was a different matter altogether, as Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652) and Diego Velazquez (1599-1660), two of the most important and influential sixteenth century Spanish painters, had profound relations with Italy. The hugely prolific Ribera, a painter known as “lo spagnoletto” (the little Spaniard), moved to Italy around 1611 and arrived in Rome in October of 1613, where he would be elected the following year to the Roman Accademia di San Luca (Brown 1998: 147). He eventually settled in Naples, remaining there for the rest of his life, as both Neapolitan and Spanish patrons and painters were drawn to his art, and many of his works were imported to Madrid. By far the most important Spanish artist to have visited Italy was Velazquez, whose first visit was between 1629 and 1631 (Brown 1986: 69-79; Coliva 1999; Salort Pons 2002). He spent over a year of that particular journey in Rome, and everywhere he traveled he was received with honors. Velazquez’s second trip to Italy occurred between 1649 and 1651, when he was at the height of his maturity. It was during that journey that Velazquez painted what many consider his finest portrait, that of Pope Innocent X Pamphili.
Aside from these well-known figures, there were a number of lesser-known Spanish artists in Rome throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that were associated with the Accademia di San Luca (Martinez de la Pena y Gonzalez 1968). The list includes some twenty-seven painters, sculptors, and embroiders, but unfortunately no architects. Compounding this situation is the fact that between 1665, when the sculptor Francisco Garcia wAs last mentioned in the Congregationi dell’Accademia di S. Luca, and the early 1730s, an enormous gap existed in the number of Spanish artists visiting RomE.4 THis dearth of Spanish activity in Italy was undoubtedly a reflection of the difficult political relations that existed between Spain and the Papacy at the turn of the century.
Despite the lack of contact with Italy at the start of the eighteenth century, there were still a number of compelling figures and tendencies that Spanish artists and architects found enormously appealing. Carlo Maratta (1625-1713), principe of the Accademia di San Luca in 1664 and again in 1700, was considered the supreme statesman of the “grand manner” in painting, following in the tradition of the Carracci, Poussin, Andrea Sacchi and Guido RenI.5 AS we have seen previously, the Spanish Cardinal in Rome, Cornelio Bentivoglio, gave the young Carlo di Borbone a portrait by Maratta when the Spanish prince arrived in Italy in 1731. Maratta’s immediate sucCessors, Andrea Procaccini and Sempronio Subisati would be summoned to Spain to work as artists and architects for Philip V and Elizabeth Farnese at the new Royal Palace of San Ildefonso La Granja in the 1720s.6 They not only brought with them Maratta’s “grand manner,” and a Roman Rococo sense of light and transparency of colors, they would also shape eighteenth-century Spanish art and architecture significantly, providing an early alternative to the many French artists and architects who had arrived in Spain with Philip V. An exceptional group of Neapolitan painters that included Luca Giordano (1634-1705), Corrado Giaquinto (1703-65) and Sebastiano Conca (1679-1764) also emerged as leading artists in early eighteenth-century Rome and Naples. Their works, both in Italy and subsequently in Spain, would dramatically shape the art of the early Bourbon courts. Giordano had been in Spain 1692-1702, working for Charles II on the great ceiling fresco, Triumph of the Spanish Hapsburgs, for the Escorial staircase (Perez Sanchez 2000; Portela Sandoval 2002; Hermoso Cuesta 2008: 83-91). Though he returned to Italy shortly after Philip’s succession, his legendary speed enabled him to complete several works at the Escorial, as well as in Toledo (Cathedral sacristy), Madrid (San Antonio de los Portugueses o Alemanes), and for many private clients, leaving behind some two hundred paintings that Jonathan Brown (1998: 251-3) has described as “good value for money”.7 COrrado Giaquinto was frequently in contact with Spain in the 1730s producing works for the Royal Palace at La Granja, and with the Spanish communitY in Rome the following decade, in particular at the church of Santissima Trinita degli Spagnoli where he was commissioned to paint The Holy Trinity Liberating a Christian Slave for the high altaR.8 HE spent several years in Spain (1753-62) as court painter (primer pintor de cdmara) to Ferdinand VI and Charles III, completing the fresco decorations for the Royal Chapel, main Staircase, and Hall of Columns at the new Royal Palace in Madrid (Perez Sanchez 2006). He would transmit his sketchy Neapolitan manner to many of his Spanish pupils at the Academia de San Fernando where he served as director 1753-62 (Cioffi 1997; Bray 1999; Perez Sanchez 2006: 75-92). Sebastiano Conca had already worked for the Spanish community in Rome designing the festivities to celebrate the birth of the Spanish infante Don Luis in 1727, and presumably painted a portrait of Carlo di Borbone while the two were in Tuscany in the early 1730s. Conca became the principe of the Accademia di San Luca 1729-32 and again in 1739-40, making him one of the more important artists in Rome (Missirini 1823: 208-09; Sestieri 1981). Once Carlo di Borbone was on the throne in Naples, Conca set up an important school for Neapolitan artists in the Eternal City at the
Palazzo Farnese (Michel 1981: 590-7; Deupi 2006: 290-309). Eventually, Conca’s studio was replaced by the academy that Carlo di Borbone set up officially in Naples in 1752 (Giannetti 1985).
In light of these new developments in early eighteenth-century Italian art, the Sevillian painter Francisco Preciado de la Vega (1712-89) and the Galician sculptor Felipe de Castro (c. 1704-75) traveled on their own accord to Italy in 1732, living modestly while studying the art and architecture of Rome (Urrea Fernandez 2006: 141-65, 237-40). This of course was the time when the Bourbon court was residing in Seville, the period known as the “lustro real” when the royal family was feted as if they had just succeeded to the throne (Morales and Quiles Garcia 2010). The young infante Charles (Carlo di Borbone) had just departed for Italy to assume his duties in the duchies of Parma and Piacenza, and so the time seemed ripe for an Italian journey. Encouraged by the Portuguese painter D. Francisco Vieira, pintor de camara del rey, who had just returned to Seville after having visited Rome, the two young Spanish artists were impressed by the idea that a visit to Italy would be the best way to advance their careers. Preciado de la Vega had trained in the workshop of the history painter and teacher Domingo Martinez in Seville before joining the studio of Sebastiano Conca in Rome. Felipe de Castro’s early training had been in Santiago de Compostela before he moved to Seville to study under Pedro Duque Cornejo y Roldan, a great exponent of the Andalucian Rococo. In Rome, he first joined Giuseppe Rusconi’s workshop before moving on to Filippo della Valle’s studio. Not surprisingly, the two young artists caught the attention of Cardinal Troiano Acquaviva for having received awards in sculpture and drawing in the concorsi clementini at the Accademia di San Luca. Felipe de Castro was awarded first prize in the 1738 First Class of sculpture competition for a terracotta shallow relief of Esther, Haman and Ahasveros. Preciado’s second prize finish in the 1739 First Class of painting competition was for a highly polished drawing of the Martyrdom of the Seven Maccabean Brothers (Cipriani and Casale 1990: 144-5). Thereafter, with support from Cardinal Acquaviva, Preciado de la Vega and Felipe de Castro were awarded royal pensions to remain in Rome. Preciado de la Vega would stay in Rome for the remainder of his life, marrying in 1750 Caterina Cherubini, a respected Italian portraitist. He was appointed Secretary of the Accademia di San Luca 1762-66 and then again 1770-77, after having been its director in 1766-70. He was also a member of the Accademia degli Arcadi, assuming the pseudonym of Parrasio Tebano, under which he wrote his most influential work, the Arcadia pictorica en sueho, alegorta o poema prosaico sobre la teorica y practica de la pintura (Preciado de la Vega 1789). Felipe de Castro was also a member of the Arcadi with the name Galesio Libadico, though he was not so fortunate to remain in Rome for long, as in 1746 he was named accademico di merito at the Roman academy, and this led to his being recalled to Spain by Ferdinand VI to assist on the sculptures for the new Royal Palace in Madrid.
While Francisco Preciado de la Vega and Felipe de Castro made their way to Italy independently, the new Bourbon monarch Philip V understood well that this was not a sustainable long-term solution to improving the nation’s cultural patrimony. Initially Philip embraced a number of Spanish artists and architects, such as Antonio Palomino (1655-1726), Miguel Jacinto Melendez (1679-1734), and Teodoro Ardemans (1664-1726), providing whatever trust and support the new court could extend. By the 1720s though, Philip - secure in his position and conscious of his legacy - began to summon a number of successful French artists to work in Madrid, including Jean Ranc, Michel-Ange Houasse, Robert de Cotte (who eventually remained in France), and Rene Carlier. These figures would represent the first major diffusion of French artistic taste in Spain (aside from fashion and etiquette that had arrived much earlier). Nevertheless, Philip understood that pensioning young Spanish artists to study in Italy and then have them return to work within his court was a much better financial plan than bringing celebrity artists from abroad to teach them first-hand. Having been raised in Paris and Versailles and knowing well that his grandfather Louis XIV had established a presence in Rome at the French Academy - sending his brightest prospects there to flourish alongside their Italian counterparts - it was simply a matter of time before Philip V would do the same.
The first Spaniards to benefit from Philip V’s plan were Juan Bautista de la Pena (1710-73) and Pablo Pernicharo (d. 1760), both of whom had studied under Michel-Ange Houasse, who Philip had brought to Spain in 1715 (Urrea Fernandez 2006: 168-74). Houasse was the son of Rene-Antoine Houasse, a pupil of Lebrun and director of the French Academy in Rome from 1699 until 1704 (Bottineau 1986a: 467). Therefore, when Philip sent Pena and Pernicharo to Rome in 1730, both were permitted to work alongside the pensioners at the French Academy, copying ancient and modern works of art. Pena visited Naples before he returned to Madrid in 1738, where he was appointed Pintor de Camara. Pernicharo entered the Accademia di San Luca and was appointed accademico di merito in 1736, just prior to his returning to Spain in the following year. Like Juan Bautista de la Pena, Pernicharo was also made Pintor de Camara in Madrid. The Valencian sculptor Francisco Vergara Bartual (1713-61) arrived in Rome in 1745 after having trained in Madrid under Giovanni Domenico Olivieri, sculptor to Philip V (Urrea Fernandez 2006: 240-56). Like Felipe de Castro, Vergara studied in Rome with the Rococo sculptor Filippo della Valle, and achieved a degree of success in the competitions at the Roman academy, being appointed accademico di merito in 1749. He would remain in Rome working diligently for the next eleven years, until his death in 1761. Among his celebrated works in the city are the colossal statue of Saint Peter of Alcantara (1753) in the nave of Saint Peter’s, and the mausoleum of Cardinal Joaquin Portocarrero at Santa Maria del Priorato in 1761.
Whereas Pernicharo and Pena were involved with the French Academy, and Preciado de la Vega, Castro, and Vergara frequented the Accademia di San Luca, others, such as the painters Antonio Gonzalez Ruiz (1711-88) and Jose Luzan Martinez (1710-85), and the engraver Miguel Sorello (1700-65), ventured to Rome without any royal assistance or academic affiliation. Gonzalez Ruiz, a pupil of Houasse as well, traveled to Paris, Rome, and Naples (Bottineau 1986a: 472). While in Italy, he acquired an interest in academic education, and after returning to Madrid he began working for the Junta preparatoria (preparatory council) of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1744. When the academy officially opened in 1752 he was appointed director of painting, and in 1756 he became Pintor de Camara. Through the generosity of the Pignatelli family, the Aragonese painter Jose Luzan Martinez traveled to Naples in 1730, and remained there for five years studying under the direction of Giuseppe Mastroleo, a pupil of Paolo de Matteis (Bottineau 1986a: 473). Luzan will forever be remembered as the teacher of Francisco de Goya. The Catalan engraver Miguel Sorello was active in Rome in the early eighteenth century, achieving a considerable reputation among Spanish and Italian patrons before returning to Barcelona (Urrea Fernandez 2006: 271-2). It was not until 1747, however, when he returned to Rome to take up permanent residency that he was appointed engraver for the Vatican and achieved his greatest success.
It is important to note that all of these Spanish pioneers traveled to Italy on their own accord or in diplomatic missions. Few, except in the case of Naples, were summoned there by royal decree. It was not until the Junta preparatoria of the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid was established in 1744 that royal pensions were finally made available, allowing Spanish artists and architects to travel to Italy in search of Roman grandeur and excellence.
World History
